Architects David and Hilary Wright did up a small house in Clontarf and added an extension
David Wright runs a practice specialising in residential extensions and new houses (tel: 01-679 9922) and Hilary Wright is a director of McClean Architects
How long have you lived here?
David: Seven years. When we walked into the house we both knew straight away that it was for us. It had a great orientation with a south-west facing garden.
Hilary: The house was immaculate; untouched for 60 years. The kitchen was a little scullery with a Belfast sink and free-standing gas stove. The house was still wired with two-pin plugs.
David: The red 1950s cooker was pristine. It seemed a shame to throw it out.
I rang up theatres to see if they could use it for a set but no one was interested. We asked the gas company if they could hook it up but they said, ‘no way’.
You weren’t daunted by the condition of the house?
David: We could see the potential and were lucky to find it because the owner wouldn’t let the estate agent put a board up.
Hilary: We saw houses where some work had been done and that would be difficult to undo. The beauty of this was that nothing had been done.
David: Less than 10 per cent of the houses we viewed had south-facing gardens. I think people tend to stay in those.
Hilary: Being by the village was a big thing, being able to walk to the shops, restaurants, sea front and park. We are a one-car family and want it to stay like that. We cycle to work in town.
David: That cycle route would be even better if there was a bridge across the Clontarf estuary – I’ve drawn up plans for one.
So did you rough it for a while when you moved in?
Hilary: There was no heating so we wore overcoats and lit fires for the first 12 months although we made a temporary kitchen and did the bathroom, heating and electrics fairly quickly.
And then you built an extension?
David: It took us a while to agree on the design but it worked really well and was good fun.
Hilary: It was like a test.
What kind of test?
Hilary: A relationship test!
What did you want from the extension?
Hilary: Light. There were two small windows looking onto the garden so there was no relationship with it.
David: It’s that cliché about making the connection between the house and garden stronger. We wanted the roof to rise towards the garden to capture as much light as possible.
Hilary: We were hoping to have a family at that stage and live here for a long time. We love entertaining, having friends here, cooking and spending time together so we wanted to have space for that: it’s the same old thing that everybody wants.
You’ve incorporated an outdoor seat into the extension
David: I used to read the paper on the back steps of the old house and wanted to keep that. The stone in the seat retains heat so you can use it in winter too. Our marble floor helps regulate heat as well. The underfloor heating helps too but the floor absorbs the sun during the day and releases it at night.
Hilary: I never wear shoes in here and it always feels comfortable.
How did you run the build?
David: We did a lot of direct labour, for instance we got a fabricator to make up the steel frame.
We maximised the sliding door elements so they open out as much as possible, even in winter we can open the door slightly if it is raining because of the overhang outside. The canopy acts as a rain screen and sun shade.
I’m surprised more people don’t design overhangs in Ireland, to protect the building from rain and sun
David: It’s a simple thing and I’m amazed how well it works.
Hilary: We wanted all glass so had to design in passive solar measures so we didn’t roast ourselves alive.
David: Sustainability is important to us: a lot of the material was sustainably sourced. There is no tropical hardwood: iroko is popular at the moment but that is a tropical hardwood.
The windows are Danish (Harmon Vindeur). At the time they had a timber system but hadn’t used it with aluminium before so there was a bit of experimenting.
So being an architect helps, then, to push ideas and use prototypes? Hilary: It does. Potential clients come here and it is useful to show them why things work.
David: Sometimes people can be unsure of something in a picture and drawings but when they see how the space works in reality it does swing their decision.
Hilary: They say they never would have thought of that but that’s why people use architects. Sometimes people ask why they would need an architect on site and I say that, if they want a deck level with the floor and to have elements that are as skinny as they were planned, and not to have a builder telling them that something can’t be done, then they need an architect.
David: When an architect supervises a project you will get an idea of cost control. Architects can save clients money. They always act in the client’s interest.
Hilary: I think sometimes builders bully people. When the architect is off site, a builder might tell a client that something is not possible.
Architects are inclined to push harder but it does take a massive amount of energy and time to go that extra mile. For instance, we had the kitchen counter made specially to fit this space and that involved about 40 discussions with the steel fabricator in Germany.
The builder wanted us to split the clerestory window in this room and we had to convince the builder that there was enough steel in here to be able to support it as one piece.
Where did you get your furniture?
David: The lights are Finnish, from Duff Tisdall and the curtains are in a Marimekko fabric.
Hilary: We went to the Marimekko shop in Helsinki which was gorgeous. We bought all the fabric in the house on that trip: it came back in our luggage.
The dining table came from Still in Belfast but House of Ireland has similar ones on sale at the moment. The couch and Loom chair came from International Office Interiors, they are by Matteo Grassi.The rocking chair is by Eames.
And you had the oak kitchen made specially?
Hilary: Yes, by my dad who is a cabinet maker. He’s retired now and spends all his time making furniture for us! We couldn’t find everything we wanted in this kitchen from one kitchen company. Plenty of companies had pieces of what we wanted but not everything together.
David: We wanted big sliding doors that would shut away all that stuff you don’t always want to look at but a company that could do that couldn’t do other things, such as basalt stone gables on the island unit.
We put the utility in a small space next to the kitchen, I would recommend that in open-plan kitchen, dining and living rooms because if you put the washing machine and tumble drier in there it takes all the noise out of the main space.
How long did the extension take?
Hilary: Six months. We lived here the whole time and that was no joke although it was pre-children. We lived upstairs and built doors across the stairs and tried to keep the dust out.
David: I wouldn’t recommend it to a client but you could see things happening on site.
Hilary: It was nice to come home from work every day and have a look because things happen very fast and you need to catch problems in time.
David: We had a good level of supervision.
You have a light colour scheme with the white walls and marble floors
Hilary: Conventional wisdom has it that natural light would only penetrate the room by 6m so the light walls and floors were to make the light reflect.
David: That’s why the kitchen is in the darkest part of the room.
Hilary: Although the actual light penetration is better than we thought it would be.
David: The dark paint panel in the kitchen is a combination of Dulux grey and a couple of Farrow Ball sample colours so that I could get the right green/grey colour I wanted.
You have kept the front room in its traditional style
David: It is important to have separate spaces so we left the front room intact and didn’t do that thing where you knock the wall, put in double doors and connect the two rooms.
Hilary: We need somewhere to go and close the door and ignore bustle and toys. All our energy now goes into the garden and our vegetable patch. All summer our son has gone out and picked raspberries every day.
